Hit & Run

Chapter Six: The Roles We Play

.Piper Belle-Harwood.

The Roles We Play

.Seven Years Ago.

“Alex! Come on!” Alex sighed dramatically and let me pull him across the snow-covered quad lawn in the middle of the many buildings that made up Callaway Academy.

Callaway Academy honestly looked like a small college with its sprawling stone buildings and beautiful sport fields and, every February, it liked to show off it’s talented students, prestigious faculty, and enchanting lands with a huge fundraiser. The whole school participated, whether they were providing entertainment, running game booths, selling food, or simply going around and asking for donations. Just about everyone in town showed up, young and old, and it was honestly my favorite time of the year.

“Zoe! Hey!” Zoe looked up from the books she happened to be arranging and smiled once her brown eyes rested upon us. She tucked her dirty blonde hair back behind her ears and I dragged Alex until we were directly in front of her booth. “Well this looks…fun.”

Zoe laughed.

“Yeah…collecting book donations for kids down at an orphanage in New Orleans is really the most exciting booth to run.”

This year’s fundraiser was for different orphanages and every few booths were dedicated to specific ones.

“Yeah, I think my parents are really getting into it,” I admitted with a laugh. “I definitely saw them around here earlier and they were talking about the possibility of personally checking out and helping with the finances of some of the orphanages we’re fundraising for.”

Zoe giggled.

“Of course they are. So how are you guys doing on Donation Duty?” she asked, nodding her head towards the clipboard in my hand.

“Super well,” I bragged. “We’ve already collected over $3,000!”

Zoe’s eyebrows lifted.

“In less than two hours? I’m impressed.”

I let out a screech as Alex’s left hand suddenly reached around and pulled me tightly to his side, lifting me slightly off the ground.

“Yeah, my girl is just the ultimate schmoozer,” Alex declared, fully lifting me by my waist so he could swing me back and forth.

“Alex!” I yelled and he laughed before ceremoniously dropping me back on my feet. However, he did pull me and keep me tightly connected to his side. He leaned down to kiss my forehead and I turned to look at Zoe. “What Alex hasn’t told you is that my parents donated $1,500 of that money and his parents donated another thousand. Suddenly a lot less impressive, right?”

“If you kept that part a secret, you wouldn’t have to worry about not being impressive,” Alex commented, bending down to kiss my forehead again.

Zoe rolled her eyes at us before speaking.

“As disgustingly cute as you two are, my favorite Golden Couple, where’s our resident bad-boy and his better half?”

“Probably off getting high somewhere-”

“I like it best when you don’t talk, Piper. You’d do the world a lot of good if you'd just shut the fuck up and didn’t poke your nose into other people’s business.” I turned my head and could feel Alex frowning at his best friend as he walked up to us. Fleur was trailing behind him, glancing over a homemade picture frame she just bought from one of the booths.